Case:Black - 41. The following events occur between 0400-0500 on July 17, 2016

The following events occur between 0400-0500 on July 17, 2016

White Sands Missile Range, NM

Department of Homeland Security

Section 39- Secure Biohazard Lab

July 17, 2016 0405 CST

Sal Martino and Ray James sat in the observation area of lab-5 and watched as the labs best computer geek attempted to retrieve the information from the media recovered from lab-3.

Aaron Brooks had started well before the Ray James had come back from lab-3. It took some time to set up things to handle the media. Anything that came from lab-3 had to be treated like it was contaminated so Brooks had set up a laptop and the necessary drives to read the media in a vacant secure glove-box lab under biohazard-level 4 (or BL-4) containment protocols. Brooks was inside the containment lab in a blue Tyvek “space suit” drawing air from tubes connected to labs air supply.

They watched as Brooks took the sealed bag containing the tapes and portable hard drives, pulled it through the airlock and broke the seal on the package.

He took a careful look at the tapes and the hard drives and said, “They all look to be in pristine condition. There’s no apparent damage to any of the four.”

Brooks opened the second bag holding the DVR that James had taken from the security system. He held it up to the light and said, “The DVR looks good too. I’m going to start with it.”

He put the DVD into the laptops CD/DVD player and closed the drive. It took a few seconds to spin up and he said, “I’m getting good data from the DVR. Now I’m going to dump it to server so we can look at it in detail.”

After entering a few commands, the laptop began dumping the contents of the DVD to the local fileserver.

While the laptop was busy with its assigned task, he put took one of the portable hard drives and connected it to a USB port. The laptop connected to the drive instantly and Brooks grinned. “Bingo. I’m reading the first drive. Looks like about sixty gigs of PC data from the lab-3 group. I’m uploading it now.”

Since the laptop was busy shoving all of that data across the network, Brooks looked around the lab. There was a stool stashed under the work table so he pulled it out and had a seat in front of laptop and whistled. “Looks like a whole lot of biochemistry and molecular biology data. I see stuff here from HyperChem, DNAStar, EMBOSS, Mathematica and more that I don’t recognize.”

Sal pushed the conference button and said, “That’s just what we’re looking for Aaron. Keep it up.”

Brooks nodded and watched as the laptop as the data moved to the network. When it finally stopped, he loaded the second drive and it pinged when the USB connection was established.

The technicians took a few moments and said, “Boss, this drive has been wiped.”

Sal said, “What? There’s no data on it?”

Brooks said, “No- it has been wiped. Give me a minute. I’ll see what I can do about recovering it.”

It took him about ten minutes but Brooks pumped his fist and said, “Gotcha.”

Sal asked, “What’s happening?”

Brooks said, “Whoever wiped this drive wasn’t real clever or thorough about it. He did a simple block delete. The data is still there, I just had to recover it. It’ll take some time depending on how much data is here but we’ll get it all.”

While the laptop was occupied with recovering the data from the hard drive, Brooks mounted the tape drives in the reader and then executed a Linux program on the server to read the drives and dump the data to the server. That might take upwards of a half hour but he knew he was in the home stretch.

The program un-deleting files on the second hard drive pinged to announce its completion and Brooks began to block copy the data to the server. Once he was done, he stood and began the elaborate process of extricating himself from the secure lab.

In the lab-5 data center, Raymond James was already looking at the data from the security DVR. As Director Martino looked over his shoulder, the photos of their suspect resolved: first in Doctor Porter’s lab and again in the server room on the next level up. James captured image after image.

James narrated, “It’s 1900 on August 17, 2005.”

Martino said, “That was the Wednesday before everything went crazy.”

“Our boy goes into Porter’s lab carrying a laptop case. He’s in there for twelve minutes. Next, he goes upstairs and uses an over-ride code to open the server closet. He’s in there for a half hour. He takes the elevator up and exits the building and is never heard from again.”

Martino said, “So that’s why we thought Porter had gotten out. He must have lifted Porter’s pass card when he was in his lab.”

James said, “And that’s why we thought Jason Cunningham was dead in the lab. He never swiped his card when he left. What do you know about him Sal?”

“We hired Cunningham out of graduate school. Heck- I think Porter even gave him a recommendation letter. He had a Masters from Stanford in virology and a strong molecular biology background. He was assigned to work with Doctor Porter’s team when they arrived in… late 03 or early ‘04.”

James asked, “What were they working on?”

Martino sighed, “That’s so classified that even I didn’t know exactly. I knew they was a huge grant from the DHS Bio-terrorism task force. I was pretty sure they were working on vaccines against possible viral pathogens. Beyond that, I didn’t need to know. My job was to keep them secure and in plenty of test tubes.”

A somewhat bedraggled Aaron Brooks entered the computer lab and went to his workstation.

Martino said, “Put all of Doctor Porters data in a zip file and send it to ftp site USARIID sent us. After that, send the data down to our people. The more heads working this problem the better.”

James asked, “Now that we know about Cunningham, what are we going to do?”

Martino said, “Frankly I don’t really know where to start. There’s only one guy that I trust with this.”

Hurricane Creek Camp

Rural Desoto County

0410

Jeffry Ballard was having a horrible nightmare. The infected were coming out of the woods and picking off his cousins and friends one by one. He woke with a start covered in sweat and tangled up in his sheets.

Gaah! No more zombie movies for me.

Those movies were a lot more fun when the real thing was completely ridiculous.

He looked over at the clock by his hammock and saw that it was a little after four in the morning. Since he reckoned himself a real fisherman, it was time to get to work. He would take a nap later during the heat of the day.

He got up, stretched, put on an old t-shirt and made his way to the kitchen.

The put on a pot of coffee and made a big pan of biscuit and put some sausage on the stove.

While breakfast was cooking, he turned the radio on. As close as they were to Memphis is was all about the quarantine and the outbreak but there was some good news. A Doctor Jackson from Southaven General had come up with a treatment that looked promising. So far the patients that had the mixture of steroids to prevent swelling were holding their own.

He sighed and thought thank God for that.

It wasn’t all good news.

Around the country panicked people had been exchanging gunfire with the National Guard with predictable results. Jeffry snorted and thought; now that takes a really special kind of stupid.

He took a cup of coffee and walked onto the screened porch overlooking the bayou. It was still pitch dark but the lights around the camp. There were six main houses and they were all built on stilts because the river flooded every spring. On higher ground above the sand bar was a metal barn and a couple of other service buildings. The land was fenced off with a gate by the road and when down to the water.

Of course it was humid. It wouldn’t be July in Mississippi if it wasn’t. A light fog was rising from the river where the warm water clashed with the cool morning air.

There was a stir from a hammock in the screen room and one of his younger cousins said, “Is that sausage I smell?”

Jeffry said, “Un-huh. But it’s only for fishermen.”

When the younger boy sat up and said, “I’ll go with you”, he could tell that it was his cousin Brad.

Brad was one of the good kids. Were it were Frank or Dylan, they were so bratty, he might be tempted to throw them to the gators. Of course it wouldn’t be one of the brats. They were all so wasted from partying that they wouldn’t be up for hours.

Brad put on his shoes and a shirt and got up while Jeffry returned to the kitchen to finish breakfast.

As Jeffry was pouring the orange juice, Brad entered the kitchen. The radio was babbling non-stop about the situation in nearby Memphis. Brad let out an exaggerated sigh.

Jeffry handed Brad his orange juice, sausage and biscuits and said, “I guess you are like me. You were hoping all that was a bad dream.”

Brad broke a biscuit in half and parked a sausage on it and said, “I don’t mind telling you what I’ve heard scares me.’

“Yeah- it sounds pretty bad.”

Brad asked, “What are we going to do?”

Jeffry said, “We’re going to hole up right here. We’ve got months of food and we can fish. Thanks to Daddy and Uncle Phil, we’re probably as well armed as the National Guard. So let’s quit worrying and go fishing.”

Brad grinned and said, “Sounds like a winner to me.”

Mexico City

0422

McGrath had all of the men cash in their tickets and rented a minivan.

Shepherd gave them the address for a safe house near the airport.

He had just pulled out onto Penon Texcoco toward the Bosques de Aragon address when he noticed a tail.

He asked his passengers, “Is anybody armed?”

Stevens said, “No boss, we were all clean for the flight.”

McGrath said, “Damn. We’ve got somebody very interested in us.”

One of the men that McGrath didn’t know said, “What are the chances it is the Federales?”

McGrath said, “I’d say just about zero driving a Mercedes.”

He sped up and moved into the fast lane inside a line of slower traffic. He glanced at his GPS and saw just how far it was to their exit. A glance in his rear view mirror showed the Mercedes was mirroring his movements from a distance.

The little minivan didn’t have much in the way of power. The sleek Mercedes behind them could easily overpower them. Whoever was driving it seemed to be content to watch. Then it occurred to McGrath.

“There’s another one out there we haven’t seen. Keep your eyes open.”

A dark Chevy Tahoe was coming up from behind in the fast lane. It could just be someone one in a hurry to beat the morning rush but they were really moving. McGrath guessed it was going between 95-100 miles per hour (~150-160 kph).

The minivan was approaching 75 miles per hour (120 kph) and McGrath was pushing it hard. It was a simple matter of physics. The Tahoe would intercept just before McGrath was going to make his move and there was nothing he could do about it.

When it happened it was like slow motion.

Just before the Tahoe pulled even, one of its windows rolled down. McGrath saw it in his rear view and floored the accelerator.

The sudden staccato explosions of a heavy machine gun broke the quiet of the pre-dawn morning and savaged the mini-van as McGrath pulled ahead. The mini-van bucked and shuddered under the impact of 7.62mm rounds as it was raked by fire while it pulled ahead of the Tahoe and darted toward the exit across traffic. Something hot and wet landed on McGrath’s neck.

The machine gun fire caused chaos in the morning traffic. The heavy rounds passed all the way through the mini-van and raked several cars in the slow lane causing panic and a chain reaction accident.

McGrath had timed his dart for the exit perfectly and zipped in front of a tractor-trailer which wiped out the Tahoe in a grisly twisting crumple of steel.

Stevens looked in the back seat and said, “Jesus Christ!”

Their three passengers in the back were dead or dying. McGrath gagged on the smell of blood, bile and voided sphincters.

He pulled off the exit ramp onto an empty suburban street and McGrath said, “Stevens, take my iPad and click on the house icon.”

The man’s hands shook as he took the iPad and tapped the icon of a house.

McGrath turned off the main road onto the side street and said, “All right: key in these numbers; 1-1-3-8 and hit enter.”

Stevens did as he was told.

McGrath said, “Type in M-X-C-4-4-3-3 and enter.”

Stevens complied and a new cluster of icons opened up.

McGrath ordered, “Tap on the garage doors.”

Stevens tapped the icon and realized that he was tied into the safe house. Three doors down the street the garage doors to a large house opened up.

McGrath drove into the over-sized garage, got out and closed the garage door.

Stevens was obviously in shock. He got out and walked around to the side of the van. Blood was dripping out of the bullet riddled van and bits of brain and bone were spattered grotesquely were the three men had been.

He looked at McGrath and said, “What the hell is this McGrath? This damn sure isn’t a Homeland Security exercise.”

McGrath said, “Stevens. I’m going to need you to get a hold of yourself. That simulated biological attack on Memphis…”

Stevens nodded and said, “Yeah?”

“It was real kid and you’re the last man standing that can link me to the rat bastards that were behind it.”

USAMRIID

Fort Detrick, MD

0425

Abigale Ames sleep was disturbed by a ping from her laptop. For the duration of the emergency, she had moved into base housing. The room reminded her of her college dorm room. For the time being, it was stark but she needed a place to sleep and a shower.

She reached for her glasses and sat up in bed. Her laptop was wide awake and demanding her attention. One of the good things about the room: it was hard wired into the bases secure fiber network. It was the fastest network connection she had ever seen.

Ames put on a robe, turned on her tea pot and sat down in front of the laptop.

She clicked on her email folder and saw what she had been looking for:

TO: USAMRIID Virology Division

FROM: FTP Daemon

RE: Files are waiting

The text of the message gave her a short description of the files, the size of the archive, the archive protocol, compatibility information and a link to files on the local FTP server. It was big: 60 gigabytes. Doubtless there would be quite a lot of “chaff” hiding the “wheat” that she was looking for.

She logged into the FTP server and wrote a shell script to move the huge data file to the Virology groups Linux server and extract it in new /usr/whitesands directory. It occurred to her that she would need to change the group permissions to allow everyone read only access to the files so she added that bit of code to the end of the script.

She started her program and logged out. By the time she was done in the shower and had grabbed some breakfast, the files would be ready for access from her lab computers.

Ames then sent an email to the other member of her work group and then set out for the shower.

Southaven General Hospital

Southaven, MS

0436 CST

“Doctor Jackson!”

Rex Jackson woke with a start. He had taken the opportunity to grab a few hours of sleep in the staff lounge.

He opened his eyes and saw one of the staff nurses standing in the door.

“What is it Miss… Sturges?”

The nurse said, “One of our cases is awake sir. I thought you might want to have a look at him.”

Jackson was on his feet in blur. “Awake?”

Sturges took the lead heading off down the ward, “The kid woke up, complained of a headache and asked for a sandwich.”

As he passed by the nurses’ station, he said, “Chart!”

The duty nurse handed it to him as he rushed by. He flipped it open to see the vital statistics: Sean Davis, 16 year old male in good health. His fever was down: a very good sign.

Jackson snorted at that. Kids are amazing at what they can shake off.

When he entered the room he remembered that this was a pair of twins. Sean was lying in bed talking to a nurse drinking water.

He approached the teen’s bedside and said, “Hi Sean, I’m Dr. Jackson. How are you feeling?”

The boy said, “I’ve got a headache and I feel like… I’ve got the flu or something.”

Jackson looked closely at the boys pupils. They were perfectly normal. He said, “Well Sean, it looks like the fever has broken. You’re on your way to beating the bug.”

The kid said, “I’m kinda hungry. Could I get a sandwich or something?”

The doctor grinned and said, “We’ll see what we can dig up.”

The boy in the bed across from him stirred and said, “Is it time for breakfast yet?”

Jackson walked over to Seth Davis side of the room and examined the other twin. He handed him a water bottle and checked his pupils.

He thought to himself- awake and hungry! We can beat this damned thing. The protease inhibitor must have kept the virus from taking hold.

Jackson said to the nurses, “By all means- let’s get these kids some breakfast.”

Washington, DC

Home of Washington Post Columnist George McGuire

0445CST

McGuire was up early as usual. He was looking at the early news and was online reading the headlines of dozens of different newspapers from across the globe. It was his routine and despite the quarantine, he would continue to work from his home office.

It had been a very strange day. For all practical purposes, DC was dead. The White House, senate and house were all evacuated to a “secure, undisclosed location”. Privately, McGuire knew that the President was at one of several alternate command centers around the country.

The representatives and senators that had been in the city had been moved to Weather Mountain Emergency Command Center. In fact the only game still in town was the Pentagon, Justice and a few essential bureaucracies that were absolutely necessary to keep the federal government functioning. If the emergency were to last much longer, the seat of government would move to Kansas City- if the old emergency plans that McGuire was familiar with were still in effect.

In another life, McGuire had been one of the worker bees in President George H. W. Bush’s cabinet. Not in the cabinet per see- he had actually done real work. He had worked in the White House Press Office and had an insider’s view of how things worked and acquired numerous valuable sources.

At exactly a quarter to six in the morning local time, McGuire’s special cell phone rang. It was special because it was the number that his numerous sources used to contact him when they had something interesting for him.

He answered the phone taking careful note that he didn’t recognize the caller ID, “McGuire.”

“Good morning George. Somehow I knew you would be up early working.”

McGuire recognized the voice. He had known Harland Garvey for years but knew better than to call him by name. Garvey held a senior post at the Pentagon and had access to pure gold. The man had something so hot that he was using a disposable cell phone to make contact.

He snorted and said, “It seems that ancient Chinese curse about living in interesting times has landed on us with both feet.”

Garvey chortled and said, “Ain’t that the truth! Look George, do you know anything about the Archangel Protocol?”

McGuire paused and thought about that for a moment. It sounded vaguely familiar but it didn’t register.

He said, “Sounds familiar but it doesn’t ring any bells.”

The General sighed and said, “Your President is the one who actually signed onto it. You know that conspiracy nut Alex Logan?”

“President Bush, the senior? Please don’t tell me that paranoid lunatic Logan is right about something.”

“Go to his web site and search for Archangel. Do it now, it’s important.”

McGuire searched his bookmarks and entered the URL. The famous conspiracy nut’s web site came up immediately. He said, “You’ll owe me breakfast if this is a wild goose chase.”

The voice on the phone said, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then. Tell me when you’ve found it.”

The web site was a wikipedia of conspiracy theories. All of the big conspiracies and numerous small ones all had their own “page”. The way Logan’s site was laid out, apparently if you were paranoid and crazy enough, you could even edit them.

Sure enough- “the Archangel Protocol” had a rather large page.

McGuire said, “OK. I found it. What about it?”

The voice on the phone said, “Read the whole page. Believe it or not, Logan’s version is very accurate. What you really need to know is that just about midnight last night the President activated the Protocol. Twenty-four neutron bombs on loan from France are on their way to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. If we lose containment of the Pandora virus, the affected cities will be sterilized.”

McGuire said, “What the hell?”

The voice on the phone said, “It’s that serious George. In the situation that we now face, if we lose it and don’t take care of it ourselves, others will do it for us. The protocol exists to allow countries to take care of it themselves.”

As McGuire read down the page about the protocol, he muttered, “Sweet Jesus.”

The voice on the phone said, “I’m pretty sure that he had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

3^rd Brigade Headquarters

Tennessee National Guard

Bartlett, TN

0455

General Scarborough waited until his senior officers were seated. He had called them in for an early breakfast to brief them on the operation orders that had arrived in his headquarters during the small hours of the night.

As soon as everyone was seated, Scarborough stood and began speaking, “This morning we recieved orders to support a joint operation with the Mississippi Guard and other Army and Air Force units.”

“When the attack occurred, a considerable fraction of the civilian air freight capacity was grounded at Memphis International. Three quarters of FedEx’s planes were caught on the ground and require decontamination before they can go anywhere. Given the emergency that the country faces, we need those planes and we’re about to go get them. Now I’m going to allow my staff G-3 to outline our part of the operation.”

Scarborough’s staff operations officer (S-3) Captain Hardin pulled down a slick map of the Memphis Metro Area. The big man took erasable markers and drew a perimeter around the airport.

“At 0700 we kick off with two mechanized infantry battalions. The 4^th of the 3^rd and the 5^th of the 3^rd will be responsible for covering the North and East sides of the airport and the North and the West sides of the airport respectively. The 6th battalion will be held in reserve just North of the airport in case we need any help. A battalion of the Mississippi Guard will move up and cover the south so we will have the airport completely ringed in.”

“Once we have the airport secured, a special aviation group out of Columbus Air Force base will land by helicopter and activate the tower. Once the tower is operational, three C-130s will land full of pilots, airmen and decontamination specialists. They will commence decontamination of the planes, fuel them up and fly them out.”

“We estimate the total time required will be about six hours so expect this op to run until at least 1400 this afternoon. Are there any questions?”

Colonel May, commander of 4^th Battalion asked, “What exactly are we securing the airport against?”

Hardin said, “We want to get the operation over and done with before people start waking up infected. Once people have this disease, we’re going to have mass chaos. Before the crazies come out, our possible foes will be our usual lunatics, militia types and conspiracy nuts.”

“Our primary mission is to secure the airport and keep anyone from interfering with getting those planes out. We have effective drug therapies for the disease but we don’t have the means to get those drugs to where they are needed. There’s really no way of telling how many lives are riding on this but the doctors have given us a real opportunity to stop this bug in its tracks.”